Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1887-07-20

Christ, so on the right hand Of Christ il
J Paul, the second great in heaven.
He changed kings likewise. Before thu
hour of death, and up to the last moment
he was under Nero, the thick-necked, the
cruel.eyed, filthy-lipped the sculptureG
features of that man bringing down to ui
to this very day the horrible possibilities Of
his nature-seated as he was amidst pictur.
ed marbles of Egypt, under roof adorned
with mother-ofpearl, in a dining-room
which by machinery was kept whirling day
and night with most bewitching magnif.
icence; his horses standing in stalls Of solid
gold, and the grounds around his palace
lighted at night by it's victims, who had
been daubed with tar and pitch and then
set on fire to illumine the darkness. That
was Paul's king. But the next moment be
| goes into the realm of Him whose reign is
love, and whose courts are paved with love,
and whose throne is set on pillars of love,
and whose sceptre is adorned with jewels
of love, and whose palace is lighted with
love, and whose lifetime is an eternity of
love. When Paul was leaving so much on
this side the pillar of martyrdom to gain so
much on the other side, do you wonder at
the ch eerful valedictory of the text: "The
time of my departure is at hand?"
Now, why cannot all the old people of this
| congregation have the same holy glee as
that aged man had? Charles l., when he
was combing his head, found a gray hair,
and he sent it to the Queen as great joke;
but old age is really no joke at all For the
| last forty years you have been dreading that
| which ought to have been an exhilaration.
You say you most fear the struggle at the
moment the soul and body part. But mill
lions have endured that moment, and why
not we as we'll? They got through with it,
and so can we. Besides this, all medical
men agree IN saying that there is probably
no struggle at all at the last moment-not
so much pain as the prick of pin, the
seeming signs of distress being altogether
involuntary. But you say: cit is the un-
certainty of the future" Now, child of
| God, do not play the infdel. After God has
| filed the Bible till it can hold no more with
stories of the good things ahead, better not
| talk about uncertainties.
| But you say, 81 cannot think of parting
| from friends here" If you are old you
have more friends in heaven than here
Just take the census. Take some large sheet
of paper and begin to record the names of
! those who have emigrated to the other
shore; the companions of your school days,
| your early business associates, the friends
of mid-life, and those who more recently
went away. Can it be that they have been
gone so long you do not want the society :?
Oh, no! There have been days when you
felt that you could not endure it another
moment away from their blessed compan-
ionship. They have gone. You say you
would not like to bring them back to this
world of trouble even if you had the power.
It would not do to trust you. God would
not give you resurrection power. Before
tomorrow morning you would be rattling
at the gates of the cemetery, crying to the
departed: 'Come back to the cradle where
you slept! come back to the hall where you
used to play! come back to the table where
you used to sit p and there would be a great
burglary in heaven. No, no! God will not
trust you resurrection power; but He COM
promises the matter, and says: "You can
not bring them where you are, but you can
go where they are" They are more lovely
now than ever. We're they beautiful here,
they are more beautiful there.
Beside that, it is more healthy there for
you than here, aged man; better climate
there than these hot summers and cold win
tors and late springs; better hearing; better
eye-sight: more tonic in the air; more per-
fume in the bloom; more sweetness in the
song. Do you not feel, aged man, some
times, as though you would like to get your
arm and foot free? Do you not feel as
though you'd like to throw away spectacles
and canes and crutches? Would you not
like TO feel the spring and elasticity and
mirth of an eternal boyhood? When the
point at which you start from this world is
old age, and the point to which you go is
eternal juvenescence, aged man, clap your
hands at the anticipation, and say, in per-
feet rapture of soul: "The time of my de-
parture is at hand.'
I remark, again, all those ought to feel
the joy of the text who have q holy curios-
ity to know what is beyond this earthly ter
minus. And who has not any curiosity
about it? Paul, suppose, had the most
satisfactory view of heaven and he says:
cit doth not yet appear what we shall be"
1t is like looking through a broken tele-
scope: "Now we see through glass dark
ly Can you tell me anything about that
heavenly place2 You ask me thousand
questions about it that l cannot answer. l
ask you thousand questions about it that
you cannot answer. And do you wonder
that Paul was SO glad when martyrdom
gave him a chance to go over and make
discoveries in that blessed country?
Hope some day, by the grace of God, to
go over and see for myself; but not now
l.
wants to go now. But the time will come,
l think, when shall go over. want to
see what they do there, and l want to see
how they do it. do not want to be look
ing through the gates ajar forever. I want
them to swing wide open. There are ten
thousand things / want xplained-about
you, about myself, about the government of
this world, about God, about everything
We start in plain of what we know, and
in minute come up against high wall of
what we do not know. | wonder how it
looks over there. Somebody tells me it is
like paved city-paved with gold; and an
other man tells me it is like a fountain, and
and it is like tree, and it is like trium-
| phal procession; and the next man | meet
tells me it is all figurative. I really want
to .know, after the body is resurrected,
what they wear and what they eat; and I
have an immeasprable curiosity to know
what it is, and how it is, and where it is
Columbus risked his life to find this con-
tinent, and shall we shudder to go out on a
voyage of discovery which shall reveal a
vaster and more brilliant country? John
Franklin risked his life to find a passage
between icebergs, and shall we dread to
! find a passage to eternal summer? Men in
Switzerland travel up the heights of the
nIatueIHoIu Will dlpouSboCk, anu SulueS,
and rockets, and ropes, and, getting half
way up, stumble and fall down in horri-
BILE massacre. They just want to say they
had been on the tops of those high peaks
And shall we fear to go out for the ascent
of the eternal hills which start thousand
miles beyond where stop the highest peaks
of the Alps, and when in that ascent there
is no peril? A man doomed to die stepped
on the scafford, and said in joy: ".Now, in
ten minutes will know the great secret. !"
One minute after the vital functions ceased,
the little child that died last night in Mon
| tague street knew more than Jonathan Ed
| wards, or st. Paul himself, before he died.
Friends, the exit froM this world, or death,
| if you please to call it, to the Christian is
glorious explanation. 1t is demonstration.
It is illumination. 1t is sun-burst. 1t is
the opening of all the windows. 1t is shut
ting up the catechism of doubt, and the
unrolling of all the scrolls of positive and
accurate information. Instead of standing
at the foot Of the ladder and looking up, it
is standing at the top of the ladder and
looking down. 1t is the last mystery taken